The constellation of super-heroes stalking the New York skyline means that pretty soon they'll be able to form a Neighbourhood Watch.

Superman, Batman, Spider-Man - and now Daredevil, there's always the chance one of them may collide with another while fighting for truth and justice.

Matt Murdock runs the greatest risk of careering into a fellow crime fighter - thanks to a childhood accident, he was blinded in both eyes.

However, his remaining senses are super-charged - he can hear a heart beat, literally smell trouble, and his heightened sense of touch has been harnessed into a keen radar vision.

The only power Daredevil, as played by Affleck, lacks appears to be charisma - but they do say love is blind.

Busily ridding the city of the usual scum, he falls for Elektra (Garner), who doesn't realise her dad is in the pocket of criminal kingpin Wilson Fisk (Clarke Duncan).

When Pop is spiked by dart-for-hire Bullseye (Farrell), Daredevil is named as the guilty man and has to fight to clear his name.

However, he has a weakness for sound - an achilles ear if you like - which doesn't bode well with a deafening heavy metal soundtrack.

The logo created for our hero bears a striking resemblance to one used on countless beer mats to promote Double Diamond beer a few years ago.

So is Daredevil an intoxicating brew with hidden depths, or a bitter disappointment who goes flat long before the closing credits?

Well, he's a bit of both. Johnson, who also wrote the script, has opted for the dark side first explored by Tim Burton in Batman.

Unfortunately, Farrell steals every scene as the obsessively vain marksman who can take the throat out of a victim with a humble paperclip.

And where there's any wise-cracking there's John Favreau, playing Murdock's law firm partner Franklin 'Foggy' Nelson.

It looks great (not that Daredevil would notice) and the plot takes a twist you wouldn't normally expect in a multiplex-pitched release - but the trouble with Daredevil is it doesn't dare enough.

Tim Evans